Test Kitchen - Chicken with Jalapeno Cream Sauce

What to do with jalapeno sauce? Sushi Dave's jalapeno sauce was in our possession for last week's Test Kitchen ingredient but there were few suggestions. Therefore, we had to rack our brains a little bit before coming up with this jalapeno cream sauce to pour into rice or over chicken. It only made sense to mellow out something spicy with a cream type of sauce. In this case, sour cream did the trick just fine. Check out the recipe below:

Step 1: Ingredients (yields 2-3 servings)

• 5-6 large chicken drumsticks
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tbsp garlic salt
• 1 tbsp sunflower oil (or oil of choice)
• 1 small white onion, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 1/4 cup water, room temperature
• 1/4 cup Sushi Dave's jalapeno sauce
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 3 small Roma tomatoes, diced (optional)

Step 2: Prepping the chicken
Mix together chicken with black pepper, paprika, garlic salt, and sunflower oil. Let marinate for an hour. If you're short on time, you can let marinate for a shorter time period (at least 10-15 minutes) but it won't be as flavorful. Preheat oven to 450°F.


Step 3: Making the sauce
Dice onion and slice garlic. In a medium skillet, add just enough oil for a thin layer. Heat on medium high before adding in onion. Stir until onion starts to brown a little on the edges. Add garlic. When garlic gets toasty, add in water and jalapeno sauce. Mix thoroughly. Add in sour cream bit by bit, incorporating well until creamy. Since we were mixing ours into the rice, we didn't thicken it with any flour but if you'd like to thicken yours, dissolve 1 tsp of flour in hot water and add to the sauce.


Step 4: Finishing
The chicken needs to roast for 35-40 minutes. When ready, enjoy with the sauce! We put the sauce on the rice itself but you can definitely slather it on the chicken. It's quite a kick in the face but a happy and good one.


This week's Test Kitchen ingredient: green cactus pear
Did we ever mention that a lot of times, the Test Kitchen ingredient chosen for the week is because we're walking through the grocery store and HEY THAT LOOKS COOL? That's how we grabbed some green cactus pears to work with. Prickly spines on the skin make them a smidgen more difficult to hold but we like the challenge. It has a creamy interior with edible seeds. Share your thoughts on Facebook when this picture goes up!


Photography by Minerva Thai.